Lair of the White Worm eBook

Oolanga was disappointed, but he dared not exhibit
any feeling lest it should betray that he was hiding.
Therefore he slunk downstairs again noiselessly,
and waited for a more favourable opportunity of furthering
his plans. It must be borne in mind that he thought
that the heavy trunk was full of valuables, and that
he believed that Lady Arabella had come to try to
steal it. His purpose of using for his own advantage
the combination of these two ideas was seen later
in the day. Oolanga secretly followed her home.
He was an expert at this game, and succeeded admirably
on this occasion. He watched her enter the private
gate of Diana’s Grove, and then, taking a roundabout
course and keeping out of her sight, he at last overtook
her in a thick part of the Grove where no one could
see the meeting.

Lady Arabella was much surprised. She had not
seen the negro for several days, and had almost forgotten
his existence. Oolanga would have been startled
had he known and been capable of understanding the
real value placed on him, his beauty, his worthiness,
by other persons, and compared it with the value in
these matters in which he held himself. Doubtless
Oolanga had his dreams like other men. In such
cases he saw himself as a young sun-god, as beautiful
as the eye of dusky or even white womanhood had ever
dwelt upon. He would have been filled with all
noble and captivating qualities—­or those
regarded as such in West Africa. Women would
have loved him, and would have told him so in the overt
and fervid manner usual in affairs of the heart in
the shadowy depths of the forest of the Gold Coast.

Oolanga came close behind Lady Arabella, and in a
hushed voice, suitable to the importance of his task,
and in deference to the respect he had for her and
the place, began to unfold the story of his love.
Lady Arabella was not usually a humorous person,
but no man or woman of the white race could have checked
the laughter which rose spontaneously to her lips.
The circumstances were too grotesque, the contrast
too violent, for subdued mirth. The man a debased
specimen of one of the most primitive races of the
earth, and of an ugliness which was simply devilish;
the woman of high degree, beautiful, accomplished.
She thought that her first moment’s consideration
of the outrage—­it was nothing less in her
eyes—­had given her the full material for
thought. But every instant after threw new and
varied lights on the affront. Her indignation
was too great for passion; only irony or satire would
meet the situation. Her cold, cruel nature helped,
and she did not shrink to subject this ignorant savage
to the merciless fire-lash of her scorn.

Oolanga was dimly conscious that he was being flouted;
but his anger was no less keen because of the measure
of his ignorance. So he gave way to it, as does
a tortured beast. He ground his great teeth together,
raved, stamped, and swore in barbarous tongues and
with barbarous imagery. Even Lady Arabella felt
that it was well she was within reach of help, or he
might have offered her brutal violence—­even
have killed her.